


What If I Told You I Like You?

by mxwolfpack



Category: Kpop - Fandom, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Artist Min Yoongi | Suga, Dancer Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, M/M, Songfic, Yoongi is an anxious mess who stares too much, everyone else is the homosexual supporting cast, hoseok is the sun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:46:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25328008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mxwolfpack/pseuds/mxwolfpack
Summary: Min Yoongi has a staring problem, but it's not his fault the boy in the studio across from him smiles like the Sun.
Relationships: Jung Hoseok | J-Hope/Min Yoongi | Suga, Kim Namjoon | RM/Kim Seokjin | Jin, Kim Taehyung | V/Park Jimin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 57





	What If I Told You I Like You?

_Let's talk about all those things that we shouldn't talk about.  
Those kinds of words that would change all the things we talk about. _

The boy with the orange hair and the smile that rivaled the Sun was almost always at school, it seemed. Min Yoongi had always kept to himself, busy fumbling with his portfolio and bag of art supplies as he rushed through the halls of the creative department to the dingy little art studio he was renting, but he was becoming shameless, and he didn’t have the heart to stop. He began positioning his easel a very certain way so he could watch the boy with the orange hair in the studio across from him, effortlessly spinning across the room, his reflection following him in the floor-length mirror. He was graceful, unbelievably graceful, and he had his eyes closed most of the time, as if the moves he was executing weren’t back-breakingly difficult and the wireless headphones in his ears weren’t impairing another sense as he leapt across the floor. He was quiet, landing silently as he practiced, so quiet that Yoongi had started lowering the music he usually blasted while he worked so he wouldn’t disturb the boy with the Sun in his eyes.

_Tell me, do you ever think of us?  
Should I ask for more or should I stop?_

Sometimes, the boy would have friends with him - two boys in particular were a common occurrence, and they danced just as well as the boy with the orange hair. One was a boy with soft brown hair, bunny teeth and a broad build who danced with a fluidity that only a professional could hold. The other was the smallest of the three, pastel pink hair always flopping in his eyes and a skill for contemporary moves that was unrivaled by anything Yoongi had ever seen. The three sweated it out for hours, deep in their own world and in the music that the boy with the orange hair only played out loud when his friends were present, and they were always in sync. Yoongi had to physically restrain himself from taking out the cheap camera he’d gotten from his parents as a high school graduation gift and snapping some reference pictures for later. 

_What if a tomorrow means that we are here together?  
What if we are taking chances just to lose it all? _

It was Yoongi’s senior year; there was absolutely no reason he should be this captured by a boy he would never have the confidence to talk to. He was a loner, an introvert with an extreme case of separation anxiety, and his roommate Kim Namjoon was the only one who had ever spent the time to let Yoongi open up and show his true colors. Yoongi desperately wanted to muster up the confidence to grab one of the throwaway easels he always had stashed in the corner of the studio for quick ideas, sketch out the figure he’d been fascinated with, and leave it next to the door of the studio across from him just to see what the boy with the orange hair would do. _Oh, what he would do to see that smile sent in his direction._ Instead, though, Yoongi shook himself off, switched the song on his playlist, and settled back into working on blocking out his final piece. He should in theory be much farther than he was, and he would have been right on time had it not been for the _distraction,_ but he couldn’t find it in his heart to resent the boy with the orange hair as he began to paint the sky in long strokes.

_Am I really crazy thinking 'bout this all together?  
What if I've been missing the writing on the wall?_

Yoongi’s mind began to wander despite his best efforts to concentrate, so he nearly jumped out of his skin when a rap at the studio door resounded through the thickening air. Namjoon’s boyfriend, Seokjin, stood smiling with two take-away cups of what Yoongi only hoped was coffee black as the night and caffeinated enough to wire him through to finals, and Yoongi beckoned him in with a nod. Seokjin gracelessly fumbled with the cups as he attempted to open the door, and Yoongi dropped his brush into the cleaning water with a chuckle.

“ _God,_ I have no idea how you could possibly spend most of your time in here,” Jin sighed, nose scrunching up as he surveyed the mess of tarps and canvases. “It’s so...dark. And depressing. And sad. Do you ever see the sun, Min Yoongi?”

Yoongi scoffed. “That’s rich, coming from a pre-med student. How was your date with your textbook?’

Jin frowned. “Mean. I stopped by to give you this disgusting tar beverage and this is what I get?”

Yoongi just made grabby hands towards the cup and Jin passed it over with a fond smile. Yoongi pulled out the stopper and gestured to a stool half-covered in an extra tarp, which Jin moved before perching and peering over to see Yoongi’s current piece.

Jin whistled. “You’re unbelievable, really. Your Master’s is going to be a breeze if you can just pull this out of your ass; all you need now is to die suddenly and your art’s prices will skyrocket.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t die with an unfinished painting, so I guess we’ll just have to hold out on that one,” Yoongi mused, taking a long sip of his tar-like coffee and relishing the feeling of it burning his trachea. Then he stopped. “Wait, hyung, how did you find this studio? You’ve never been here before and Namjoon is way too directionally challenged to be able to direct you.”

_What if I say  
I know, you know  
What if I told you I like you?_

Jin laughed. “You know what they say about book smarts and street smarts; they aren’t often correlated. I actually am here to see Hoseok, but I was waiting for him to show up and turned to see you with the most furrowed brow I’ve ever seen you have stabbing a canvas with a brush. The coffee was actually for him but I realized it was your order as well, and he’s late, so it’s yours now.”

Yoongi raised a brow, taking another sip of coffee. “Hoseok?”

“Yeah, Jung Hoseok. We’re lab partners for one of my undergrad classes and he missed class and needs makeup notes. I guess he uses the studio across from this one? Orange hair, way too enthusiastic about everything, one of the most graceful people on Planet Earth?”

Yoongi choked on his drink. “O-oh. I might’ve seen him once or twice.”

“Jesus Christ, Yoongi, swallow,” Jin said, slapping his friend on the back way too hard to be helpful. “You look like I just told you I was straight. Why, do you have bad blood with Hobi?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I just-”

Yoongi froze immediately when a smiling face appeared at the window, knocking a few quick times before waving frantically at Seokjin. He was even prettier up close, all sharp features and high cheekbones with a smile that almost formed a heart, and Yoongi tried to keep his coffee down as his anxiety bubbled up in his throat. Jin shot him a slightly concerned look.

“Uh...that’s Hobi, although, judging by your expression, you already knew that. I’m...gonna go, okay? I’ll come by the apartment later so I’ll...see you later…”

Yoongi swallowed his panic and nodded. “Yeah, sure, sounds good. Good luck. Or. Yeah.”

Jin just shook his head. “Cool. Don’t think too hard, you might break something.”

_We stay, we go  
What if I told you I like you?_

Yoongi tried to concentrate, he really did. But his brush strokes were sloppy and his eyes were constantly switching between what he should be doing and what he absolutely should _not_ be doing. It took about seven minutes for Jin to look over, expression unreadable as he looked from the orange haired boy - Hobi, was it? - to his roommate’s boyfriend, and it took two minutes after that for the lightbulb to go off. The shit-eating grin Jin sent Yoongi’s way once he figured out what was going on sent Yoongi packing immediately, scrambling to put his paints and easel away and slamming the door to the studio in a panic to try and get away from the situation as fast as possible. 

He was in such a rush to leave that he didn’t even see the figure in front of him before he was slamming into it full-force.

Both stumbled back a little and Yoongi immediately dropped into a deep bow, cheeks coloring.

“I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going, I hope you’re not hurt-”

“Hyung, it’s okay,” the newcomer laughed, and Yoongi looked up to see his family friend, a kid a few years younger than Yoongi who was also an art student, Kim Taehyung. Taehyung quickly stooped to help his hyung collect the brushes that had flown in various directions when they hit the floor, then fixed Yoongi with the brightest box-shaped smile ever. “What’s got you speeding off so fast?”

_I know, you know  
What if I told you I like you?_

“I’m...late for class,” Yoongi lied through his teeth, still fumbling with the portfolio as he stood up. He noticed that Taehyung didn’t have anything on his person except for the usual backpack and a stack of papers in his hand. “Are you here to paint?”

Taehyung waved a hand. “Nah, I’m actually here to drop off some flyers I was commissioned to make for a dance recital in the quad next month.”

“Oh, cool.” Yoongi peered over to take a look at the colorful flyers in his classmate’s hands, swallowing thickly when he saw the name ‘Hoseok’. _Of course he was in it._

Taehyung brightened all the sudden. “Hey, you should come with me! I promised my boyfriend I’d come after art class but I hate being alone. C’mon, we can go together!”

The word ‘boyfriend’ was not lost on Yoongi, and his brain quickly realized that the little pink-haired boy Hoseok had been practicing with was also the little pink-haired boy that stood by the art building waiting for Taehyung to get out of class. He smiled to himself.

“I-I don’t know, I might be busy that day,” Yoongi mused, trying to plan his week out in his head. Quickly, his brain supplied the word ‘Hoseok’ back into his thoughts, and he immediately wrote off any other potential plans he might have agreed to. “Nah, I’m open. I’ll tag along.”

Taehyung’s smile rivaled Hoseok’s when he met his hyung’s eyes. “Awesome!

_We stay, we go  
What if I told you I like you?_

After his run-in with Taehyung, it was even more impossible for Yoongi to focus. He had deadlines to meet and projects to finish, but he still found himself staring listlessly into the corridor trying to memorize the orange haired boy’s moves. It seemed like the end of the semester wasn’t just weighing on Yoongi’s shoulders; Hoseok’s movements became more and more desperate, the cursing under his breath becoming louder and louder as finals drew near. His final painting didn’t look _bad_ \- he wasn’t conceited but he did know he could paint better than the majority of the student body - but he wasn’t putting near enough concentration into his foreground and the background was a little muddled. He couldn’t bring himself to care, though, when Hoseok would look up every so often and offer a gentle wave in Yoongi’s direction. He slowly began to change his most prominent figure.

_I hear everything you saying, saying 'bout us  
It's not about right or wrong, it's about what we love._

A month flew by and finals week was soon upon the students. The bags under Namjoon’s eyes grew more and more prominent, and the boys started sleeping on the couch in between studying shifts like they were guarding a prisoner. Yoongi’s Carpal tunnel was acting up, so his trusty wrist brace was what allowed him to keep attending study sessions and filling notebook after notebook with artistic jargon. Jin would show up at their apartment every so often with takeout pizza and approximately ten thousand pre-med textbooks; he would sprawl out on the floor, sharp eyes reading for hours on end, before flopping over and whining about life being unfair. Even Taehyung, ever peppy and alert even in the darkest of hours, towed his boyfriend - who Yoongi learned a few days in was a contemporary dance student named Jimin - to visit the apartment and study with Yoongi. They brought with them shitty instant ramen and soft drinks and complained about their undergrad general education classes before Jin threw a book at them and told them to shut up.

_Would it be simple or would it be too complicated?  
Should I keep going or maybe it's better to stop?_

The day of the dance recital, Taehyung and Jimin were at Yoongi and Namjoon’s apartment getting ready because a pipe had burst in theirs and the bathroom had flooded. Jimin had shown up wearing what looked like spray-on pants (he insisted they were just well-fitting leather) and Yoongi had had a full existential crisis in his room realizing he was going to have to see Hoseok in the same pants. Namjoon had come in to check on him and had left cackling. Yoongi had then donned his best ripped jeans and hooded sweatshirt, and even spent the few extra minutes to steal a spare palette Jin had left at the apartment and dab some black eyeshadow underneath his eyes before the group was ready to go. Namjoon refused to be left behind, and Jin was meeting them at the venue, but they had to leave a bit earlier to get Jimin backstage and warmed up. The four piled into Yoongi’s minivan and Yoongi hopped in the driver’s seat, trying not to throw up from nerves.

_What if a tomorrow means that we are here together?  
What if we are taking chances just to lose it all?_

The theater was dark when they arrived, but there was a concession stand in the foyer and they had Reese’s peanut butter cups, so Yoongi turned to stress-eating before Namjoon cut him off with a withered look. Taehyung had immediately went with Jimin backstage, saying something about bothering someone named Jungkook, and he had yet to reappear, so Namjoon and Yoongi went to find their seats accepting the fact that Taehyung might have died on the way back and that they weren’t responsible for him either way. They played a knockoff Scrabble phone game with each other for about twenty minutes before Jin plopped down in the middle seat between them and whipped out the playbill.

“Ten minutes until showtime,” Jin sang. “Time for Yoongi to see his little crush!”

Yoongi flushed crimson and attempted to strangle his hyung with his hoodie string.

_Am I really crazy thinking 'bout this all together?  
What if I've been missing the writing on the wall?_

But Jin wasn’t wrong; as the curtain went up and the boy with the Sun in his eyes appeared at center stage, Yoongi felt his heart soar. Of course, _of course,_ Hoseok was even more brilliant with the lights and the eyes of the audience on him, and he glowed under the spotlights as he moved with a liquid grace across the stage. Yoongi knew next to nothing about dancing, the only knowledge he had way back from when he rapped in a group in high school and one of the members did break dancing, but he was convinced this was just about as good as it could get. He held onto every movement, every note, every pose as the recital went on, and he shamelessly replayed Hoseok’s performances in his mind whenever the boy was not on stage. Admittedly, Jimin was also incredible, as was the bunny-toothed boy with the dark hair, but Yoongi was far too deep within his own thoughts to truly appreciate the grace Jimin moved with and the fluidity the dark-haired bunny boy executed during their pieces. One knowing look shot his way from his roommate made it apparent Yoongi wasn’t being secretive of his bias.

_What if I say  
I know, you know  
What if I told you I like you?_

After the recital, Taehyung, who had appeared next to Yoongi right as the first performance had started and who had cheered so loudly for his boyfriend that they got dirty looks the rest of the night, ushered them around the back of the theater. The dancers had changed surprisingly quickly, most of them now in basketball shorts or leggings and baggy sweatshirts, and were downing water like dead men while the volunteers mopped their foreheads with towels. Jimin was the first to notice the group, pretty eyes lighting up as he saw his friends, and Yoongi realized with a startling shock that Jimin’s hand was locked on the boy with the orange hair’s arm as he moved towards them. Yoongi braced himself for impact.

“Guys, hi!” Jimin chirped, glowing under the streetlights. “How were we?”

Taehyung squealed and jumped at his boyfriend, nuzzling deep into Jimin’s shoulder. “You were _incredible,_ Chim. You too, Hobi - all that work really paid off, huh?”

Hoseok flung the towel in his hand over his shoulder and smiled a dazzling grin. “I sure hope so! This is my final grade of my senior year and I doubt I’ll be able to find any jobs that’ll take me if I fail a recital. Crazy to think everything is done, though. I’m gonna miss that little studio.”

_We stay, we go  
What if I told you I like you?_

The boy with the orange hair’s eyes then scanned the group in front of him, brightening when he recognized Yoongi. Yoongi swallowed thickly, bracing himself for the worst - chastising him for always staring, definitely, but things could get very bad very fast. But instead, Jin shoved him forward a few inches, and Hoseok stepped forward as well to greet his studio neighbor.

“You,” Hoseok spoke, eyes unreadable. “You’re the artist from the unit across from mine, yeah?”

Yoongi tried to swallow his anxiety and resist sprinting away. “Y-Yeah, that was me.”

Hoseok’s smile became soft, unbearably so. “Thank goodness we finally meet. I’ve been meaning to talk to you for ages; it’s hard to miss anyone as pretty as you.”

_I know, you know  
What if I told you I like you?_

Yoongi damn near died on the spot. “I-I’m sorry?”

“You’re pretty,” Hoseok said evenly, confidence radiating off of his figure. “I wanted to talk to you because we both know you have a staring problem. Not that I’m complaining. At all.”

“I...yeah, okay, you caught me.” Yoongi deflated, although hope still bubbled up in his throat as he realized Hoseok wasn’t being serious. His tone was teasing, which was good; maybe he didn’t mind it? “You were...interesting. More interesting than my final painting. Yeah.”

From behind him, Jin groaned. “Oh my _God,_ Yoongi, you couldn’t flirt if a gun was pointed at you.” He stepped forward, grabbing Yoongi’s arm as he moved, and smiled his award-winning smile at Hoseok. “Please excuse our emotionally constipated friend here. Are you interested in attending an art gallery showing? As a date?”

_We stay, we go  
What if I told you I like you?_

Yoongi spent the rest of the week stressing violently. He barely ate, barely slept, and spent all time not staring at his notes perfecting his final piece with painstaking accuracy. Namjoon began sliding notes under his bedroom door letting him know dinner was ready, and Jin sent him personalized playlists with names like “don’t die” and “please forgive me” which, after Yoongi received the links, made him laugh harder than he had in months. His last strokes were put on the night before the showcase, six shots of espresso deep and in between thirty-second naps, before he kicked back in his office chair and said “Fuck it” loud enough for Namjoon’s head to peek through the crack in the door.

“Finished?”

Yoongi dropped his paintbrush into the water and swirled it around a bit.”Finished."

He then pulled himself out of his chair, landed in a belly flop onto his shitty mattress, and passed out until his alarm and the glaring Sun through his window woke him up.

Jin had let himself into the apartment and had made fancy waffles for his boys, which Yoongi devoured in ten seconds flat before choking and having to have Namjoon perform the Heimlich maneuver on him. The three got ready for the showcase, which started at noon, and Yoongi stepped into his still-crisply-pressed suit that he reserved only for business purposes. Jin and Namjoon were dressed in dress shirts - lilac and gray - and pressed dress pants and looked way more put-together than a pre-med student and an statistics major could look, and Yoongi reveled quickly in the fact that all of his friends would make wonderful models for upcoming pieces before he shook himself off and followed the two out the door. Yoongi and his now-finished painting sat in the back of the minivan and Jin manned the steering wheel with Namjoon in the passenger seat; it was like clockwork, mainly because parking was hard to come by downtown where the art gallery was and Yoongi had to be there before anyone else, so they had developed a system that worked for everything but Yoongi’s carsickness.

When they got to the gallery, Yoongi unloaded his painting and walked the few steps to the art gallery, where he was let inside by the owner and ushered to the empty spot where his final would be showcased. He suppressed his nerves as he hung the painting up on the hooks and stood back for a moment, taking in all of the pieces he’d done in his four years at university, from freshman to senior year. He felt strangely proud, a strangled sort of feeling that he wasn’t used to feeling, but the moment was short-lived when he realized he’d been spacing out for twenty minutes and the gallery audience was now entering through the front doors. 

He straightened the lapels of his suit and tried to breathe through his increasing anxiety.

The showcase went well; he somehow managed to sell eight paintings, which was almost unheard of for a simple senior final showcase, but no matter what excitement came his way he couldn’t stop the nagging thoughts in the back of his mind that involved the final piece still hanging on the wall. Part of him had hoped it would be the first one sold, before most of the audience could see it, but he knew he’d never be that lucky - after all, Jin had already seen it and Yoongi knew merciless teasing would await him back home. But he still held out hope.

Until a familiar head of orange hair appeared before him, and his heart dropped to his shoes.

Hoseok was gorgeous, gorgeous as expected. He was wearing a black dress shirt, a little too unbuttoned for Yoongi’s sanity, and horribly loudly printed pants with a matching belt. He grinned brightly when he saw Yoongi and beelined over to him, despite Taehyung and Jimin following directly behind him.

“Hey! Sorry we’re late, Jimin takes an eternity to get ready! How has-”

He stopped mid-sentence, and Yoongi prepared for his untimely demise.

But instead of every bad scenario Yoongi had thought up over the past week, instead of yelling or cursing or running away, Hoseok’s eyes shown like the Sun as he panned from the final painting to the artist who created the final painting.

“You painted me,” Hoseok murmured, the most genuine smile Yoongi had ever seen on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> This actually took me like a week to complete because it's all just fluffy goodness so I hope you enjoy! I'm slowly trying to broaden my horizons both in terms of ships and content, and songfics have always been hard for me, so I tried my best and I hope it turned out okay. I love Sope and Vmin and Namjin and they're just so fun to write.
> 
> The song I wrote this to is "What If I Told You I Liked You?" by Johnny Orlando & Mackenzie Ziegler! It's a really cute fluffy song and deserved some cute fluffy writing to go along with it.


End file.
